Daniel Radcliffe has weighed in on the great Harry Potter ranking debate, and he’s not afraid to go against the grain.
The 36-year-old actor, who played the boy wizard across all eight films from 2001 to 2011, appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz and was challenged to rank the franchise he knows better than almost anyone.
He admitted upfront that he hasn’t actually watched the films in quite some time, and that his relationship with his own performances shifts over time.
“When I was 18, I would cringe watching the earlier films. Now, I think the early films are sweet and now I cringe watching myself when I was 18 or 19,” he said.
“But I assume that those dates will just keep changing as to what I find palatable of my own work.”
When it came to the early instalments, he gave the edge to Chamber of Secrets over Sorcerer’s Stone, purely on the strength of one creature.
“I would take Chamber of Secrets out of those two ’cause I love the Basilisk,” he explained.
His most eyebrow-raising call came when comparing Goblet of Fire with the widely beloved Prisoner of Azkaban, which many fans and critics consider the artistic high point of the series.
Radcliffe went the other way.
“I know everyone wants me to say Azkaban. I know that’s how everyone else feels, but I love the stuff I got to do on the fourth movie; it was awesome. So I’ll say Goblet of Fire.”
At the top of his personal ranking sits Deathly Hallows Part 2, the emotional finale of the series, a choice that feels fitting given the weight of what that film represented for everyone involved.
At the bottom?
Half-Blood Prince. And he was quick to take responsibility for that verdict. “Half-Blood Prince is probably the bottom of the bracket for me. And that’s my own stuff. That’s not the film.”
